Alex Bond is not the sort of guy you forget in a hurry. Just 18 and small of stature, he’s frank and forthright, confident and a bit cheeky.  A damned good singer, he’s been treading the musical boards since he was 15, and chalked up no less than nine productions in 2008, in addition to finishing high school.

Now, in the first year of a music degree, he aims to be a Wagnerian tenor. Let the record show, he finds himself unexpectedly cast in his first non-singing role and to his surprise, is enjoying the experience very much.  

“Now I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like theatre,” says Alex. “It’s just that I’ve done so many singing roles in the past few years. So I jumped at the opportunity to do some straight theatre, though ‘straight’ probably isn’t the right word!”

Indeed it is not. Roots and Wings, by the enormously popular Welsh writer Frank Vickery, concerns a young man, Nigel, who ends up in hospital after he and friend Kevin are in a car crash. It turns out Nigel’s not just gay, he’s also a drag queen!

“A role to kill for,” Alex says with a grin, “And I’ve got decent legs! Seriously, though, the drag is more something that’s referred to, and it only really makes sense for Nigel to actually be in drag at the beginning of the play, after the car accident. Nigel’s in hospital, after all. But it’s still very funny and you can just see Nigel as a drag queen. Vickery’s a really sharp writer, and he’s written Nigel beautifully, and he’s got the bitchy banter down pat.”

Gay Alex may be, and proud to boot, but did he have any qualms about taking on quite such an ‘out-there’ role at this early stage?

“Are you joking?” he says, “I wanted to get into drag. I’ve been nagging Rochelle for ages. I want to get into his wardrobe!”

In Roots and Wings, Nigel is the centre of a litany of comic events involving his parents, his lover’s parents, and a sympathetic nurse. “Every one of the characters is beautifully written,” Alex says. “Vickery gets so much from the characters, from poignant moments to broad comedy. Like Nigel’s mother, Ruby, she’s hysterical. She loves her boy no matter what and you’d be mad to get in her way. And the ‘in-laws’ as I call them, my lover’s parents, who seem pretty uncomfortable with the situation until you find out their discomfort is not so much about Nigel and Kevin as about their own little secrets. It’s very much in that British comedy vein, lots of word-play, but it’s also got a serious side to it, about loving people unconditionally, and accepting them for who and what they are, and I found that really touching.”

Roots and Wings plays in the Domain Theatre at the Marion Cultural Centre, May 14-23. More information and booking details from galleon.org.au

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